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Class Warfare Indeed
Over the last two decades or more, Republicans have been denouncing as “class warfare” any attempt at criticizing and restraining their mean one-sided system of capitalist financial expropriation. 
The moneyed class in this country has been doing class warfare on our heads and on those who came before us for more than two centuries. But when we point that out, when we use terms like class warfare, class conflict, and class struggle to describe the system of exploitation we live under—our indictments are dismissed out of hand and denounced as Marxist ideological ranting, foul and divisive.
Amanda Gilson put it perfectly in a posting on my Facebook page: “[T]he concept of ‘class warfare’ has been hi-jacked by the wrong class (the ruling class). The wealthy have been waging war silently and inconspicuously against the middle and the poor classes for decades! Now that the middle and poor classes have begun to fight back, it is like the rich want to try to call foul---the game was fine when they were the only ones playing it.”
The reactionary rich always denied that they themselves were involved in class warfare. Indeed, they insisted no such thing existed in our harmonious prosperous society. Those of us who kept talking about the realities of class inequality and class exploitation were readily denounced. Such concepts were not tolerated and were readily dismissed as ideologically inspired.
In fact, class itself is something of a verboten word. In the mainstream media, in political life, and in academia, the use of the term “class” has long been frowned upon. You make your listeners uneasy (“Is the speaker a Marxist?”). If you talk about class exploitation and class inequity, you will likely not get far in your journalism career or in political life or in academia (especially in fields like political science and economics).
So instead of working class, we hear of “working families” or “blue collar” and “white collar employees”. Instead of lower class we hear of “inner city poor” and “low-income elderly.” Instead of the capitalist owning class, we hear of the “more affluent” or the “upper quintile.” Don’t take my word for it, just listen to any Obama speech. (Often Obama settles for an even more cozy and muted term: “folks,” as in “Folks are strugglin’ along.”)
“Class” is used with impunity and approval only when it has that magic neutralizing adjective “middle” attached to it. The middle class is an acceptable mainstream concept because it usually does not sharpen our sense of class struggle; it dilutes and muffles critical consciousness. If everyone in America is middle class (except for a few superrich and a minor stratum of very poor), there is little room for any awareness of class conflict.
That may be changing with the Great Recession and the sharp decline of the middle class (and decline of the more solvent elements of the working class). The concept of middle class no longer serves as a neutralizer when it itself becomes an undeniable victim.
“Class” is also allowed to be used with limited application when it is part of the holy trinity of race, gender, and class. Used in that way, it is reduced to a demographic trait related to life style, education level, and income level. In forty years of what was called “identity politics” and “culture wars,” class as a concept was reduced to something of secondary importance. All sorts of "leftists" told us how we needed to think anew, how we had to realize that class was not as important as race or gender or culture.
I was one of those who thought these various concepts should not be treated as being mutually exclusive of each other. In fact, they are interactive. Thus racism and sexism have always proved functional for class oppression. Furthermore, I pointed out (and continue to point out), that in the social sciences and among those who see class as just another component of “identity politics,” the concept of class is treated as nothing more than a set of demographic traits. But there is another definition of class that has been overlooked.
Class should also be seen as a social relationship relating to wealth and social power, involving a conflict of material interests between those who own and those who work for those who own. Without benefit of reason or research, this latter usage of class is often dismissed out of hand as “Marxist.” The narrow reductionist mainstream view of class keeps us from seeing the extent of economic inequality and the severity of class exploitation in society, allowing many researchers and political commentators to mistakenly assume that U.S. society has no deep class divisions or class conflicts of interest.
We should think of class not primarily as a demographic trait but as a relationship to the means of production, as a relationship to power and wealth. Class as in slaveholder and slave, lord and serf, capitalist and worker. Class as in class conflict and class warfare.
And who knows, once we learn to talk about the realities of class power, we are on our way to talking critically about capitalism, another verboten word in the public realm. And once we start a critical discourse about capitalism, we will be vastly better prepared to act against it and defend our own democratic and communal interests.
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Show All"This wealth was stolen from the rest of society, on whom these predators preyed."
The wealth from the rest of society, to which you refer, was originally stolen from other societies, other people, other Life forms and the Earth itself.
And with that proclamation, we are to do what exactly? I suggest you take off all of your clothes, walk out into the forest, and let yourself slowly return to the Earth. Otherwise, someone might find something to deem you hypocritical.
What a dumb thing to say.
What you do, exactly, is learn from it. Use the information to form a clearer picture of how the world actually works and why things stand as they do.
Beyond that, actions are individual choices. Informed choices tend to be wiser choices, I think.
PeterP
You're a darling! Every once in a while a little lamb like you stumbles into this place and gets slaughtered. Allow me to prepare the Mutton chops.
Capitalism is perpetual theft. It's called "surplus value", whereby the fruits of people's labor are continually siphoned off in order to create "profit". It has nothing to do with "hard work" or "God given talents". Otherwise Van Gogh wouldn't have died poor and J. Rockefeller rich. I can guarantee you that there are people much, much smarter, talented, and hard-working than you who subsist on a few dollars a day.
Imperialism is "surplus value" extracted on a gargantuan scale; why do you think there is a "first world" and a "third world", dumbass? Did you think it was because Europeans are simply "better", or because Haiti was already a slum when Columbus set sail?
As for your horrid government "stealing property", capitalism has never existed without the state, nor could it, for the simple reason that theft on such a grand scale requires coercion. See for example police and armies. What we have here is wealth redistribution on such a massive scale that it becomes background noise. Imbeciles such as yourself are too stupid to realize it's even happening -- except when the miserable majority demands a small portion back.
Again, google "starving African", then look at your own fat belly; try to imagine why this arrangement has come to pass.
The state CONSTANTLY redistributes wealth from those who work for a living to those who feed like vampires on said work. Any moral person should desire for people to be entitled to the entire fruits of their labor.
Stop trying to justify your debauchery.
Brilliant, really.
Well done.
I see there are some things you don't know about how American style capitalism works. I'll spare you the first two centuries of that theory in action and focus on its modern incarnation.
Speculator driven food prices are one example. The market drives the prices beyond the means of low income populations while people half a world away get rich on the cause. For extra irony points, consider that some of the people who can't get enough to eat actually produce the very food that they can't buy.
Currency markets are the same. Entire economies have been wiped out as a result of profiteering by foreigners.
That's what globalism is all about, you know. It's just a vehicle for economic imperialism backed by force. American style capitalism can thrive in such a world because it's primary, amoral ethic is 'expand'.
The state is already involved in stealing the fruits of the working class people.
If you stand against use of the State to steal, then you must oppose Capitalism and support socialism.
Peter, this article might interest you and might afford you a clue as to who is being divisive if not actually criminal to whom: www.alternet.org/books/152549/how_companies_plunder_and_profit_from_the_nest_eggs_of_american_workers/ ****************************************************************You wrote: "Telling people they are entitled to someone else's property or rights against their will .."--THIS is the pre-eminent advocacy of those descendants of European invaders and slavers who still refuse to acknowledge that the USA was built on other peoples' lands--Turtle Island--a nation also built upon the blood and free--enforced--labor of Black people. And it is the advocacy of the employing class and the job EXPORTING class as they gut the wages of those who actually create the wealth.
Reply to Paranoid Pessimist:
Oh yes! We need a candidate (or candidates) who are
"really for real".
Now who might that be?
As presidential canndidate, we're surely going to have Mr. Pseudoliberal
Obama as the left half of the political duopoly; we're surely going to have
Mr. (pseudo?)-Conservative Anybody as the right half of the political
duopoly. It seems that neither will be seen as the best. I'm giving just
now the opinion of a cultural opposition. You all (as it seems) oppose
not just the publicly spoken-of promises of the "pseudoliberals" or the
"pseudo-or-crypto-conservatives". I perceive that you oppose the culture
of the duopoly, by which I mean that a political diopoly demands that we
be presented only two choices, and when either of those choices is voted
into power, those with the power would do what they want to do. They
must, however, fight or pretent to fight with the half of the duopoly that is
then out of power, who are nevertheless granted a partial power to obstruct.
[The party in power in the senate must have sixty votes out of a hundred
before they can do anything important. That's often quite difficult for even
the party in power to corral.] So what happens? Sometimes in the political
confrontation we get stalemate; nothing of importance gets done.
The thought comes to mind, that governance in USA may become subject
to a Hegelian dialectic. That idea is in textbooks, but I'll summarize it
briefly. There is the thesis -- say liberalism. There is the antithesis -- say
conservatism. There occurs a confrontation between thesis and antithesis,
which is where we appear to be just now. Then a synthesis occurs,
whereby something replaces both the thesis and the antithesis. I
suspect that we as a nation are now seeing the beginning of a synthesis
of (i) the purposes of the liberals and (ii) the purposes of conservatives.
The synthesis is not yet clear. I will suggest that part of the synthesis will
be found in a new purpose. That is anti-corporativism. Keep in mind that
fascism in Italy undear Mussolini (in the 1930's and 1940's) comprises a
joining together of corporations and government. Hitler made a similar
joining together in Germany. It all amounted to totalitarian power. That is
what we DO NOT want. Seeing that we don't want any totalitarian power,
I suggest that Americans of common sense advocate anti-corporativism.
I have written too long, but I was in the grip of ideas, and they had to be
expressed. As Occupy Wall Street has continued and developed, much
of its purpose seems to me to be anti-corporativism, i.e., advocating
destrucation of a governmment-corporation-banking nexus that ever
increasingly oppresses us and the concept of We The People (as written
in our constitution). If we had a right-thinking Supreme Court, we should
expect it to declare corporativism unconstitutional. To the extent that
Occupy Wall Street advocates anti-corporativism, I whole-heartedly
support the occupation. I would just merely suggest that more needs
to be done than just occupying some park in New York City. What that
is I hesitate to say right now. Some who read this post almost surely will
oppose ANY co-operating alongside government or corporate; I fear
that they will be over-evaluating their power. "Preserve, protect and
defend the constitution of the United States." So I am ending with that
part of the oath of office of the president.
"The wealthy have been waging war silently and inconspicuously against the middle and the poor classes for decades!"
Merkan elites have been waging class war against the people since the beginning, but it has been cleverly masked by the Edward Barnays Madison Ave propaganda driving Merkans to compete, to get ahead, in the 'land of opportunity'. True, Merka has provided opportunity with strong property laws and other mechanisms to reward 'productivity'. And there have been a handful of useful results, e.g. the transistor, the internet, that Merkans point to as evidence that the system works, that all Merkans have to do to thrive is play the game that is in place.
If Merkans were to play the game with ethical intentions, the outcomes could also be ethical. But this isn't happening, and so now Merka is plundering the planet and kicking around and enslaving people with wild abandon. The game amounts to class warfare, and plunder, because the ethics are missing from the rules. Most of the output is destructive. Only when an ethical standard is imposed on game rules does a lack of ethics become easily viewed as a crisis, class war, planetary destruction.
The solution for the people, then, is to change the game rules, by imposing an ethical standard upon them. This is most elegantly achieved through localism. Localism puts people face to face where high ethics come easily, naturally. Notice the wild contrast to this in globalism, where the ethical low bar is set.
Merka is a big nation. 'Nationwide' is a global idea. But the people are now busy dismantling nationwide/global markets, by shifting their exchange/association to their local communities, face to face. The ethical standard is automatically imposed. The local community is relatively classless, peaceful.
It isn't often we see Parenti speak here at CD, but when he does, I can only think of one quote: “When I pause the longest, I make the most telling stroke
" --Leonardo da Vinci
Thanks to the editors!
well said!
It's high time to start Boycotting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its corporate supporters.
You can call it any God damn thing you want, but we are approaching two classes: RICH and POOR as in Russia in the Nineteenth Century or England in the same century. Sorry Boss but I will not doff my cap and say "Sir" to somebody else just because he has money, land, and slaves. I would rather (and am quite prepared) to die, especially considering my advanced age.
My Grandchildren are another matter. You will NOT grind them under your heel as long as I have a breath in my old body. I am talking to the likes of YOU Chris Christie; actually the whole Republican Party, and for that matter the government of the USA. I am speaking for thousands: Don't fuck with us.
http://weaintgottimetobleed.com/
Letter to the Ruling Class
You control our world.
You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat.
We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you.
You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed.
We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence.
You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings.
You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions.
You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living.
You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame.
We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed.
We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!
Sincerely,
The Serfs
Well said.
Exactly! That is the sort of communique that the Wall Street Occupation General Assembly needs to start issuing.
Excellent article, thanks for posting it Common Dreams.
A terrific piece by Mr. Parenti. But he overlooked mentioning one type of class--the ignorant, xenophobic, jingoist class to which so many Merkans belong.
You completely missed Parenti's point. "Class" does not mean "interest group".
Perfect article for these days and times!
Volumes have been written about class, but this Primer on Class is all a person needs as a frame for understanding what is happening in the USA now and in this period of human history.
The Capitalist Era is the name for it. The power relationships are definitely laid out on the haves-have nots spectrum. It is a tug of war that the other side has been winning for the past 30 years.
In the US, class in not an issue until it becomes too clear that it is and always will be an issue in The Capitalist Era. The pendulum has finally swung to the zenith on the side of extreme greed and power. Money is what we all want and the more it is concentrated into the hands of the few, the more power they have, the more money they have, the more power they have, the more money they have, on and on until the whole thing snaps.
If the wealthy 1% (yes, they will always be with us in The Capitialist Era) know what's good for them, they will start to throw a few more crumbs to the masses before the rabble get too restive and start looking for managerial heads to cut-off, banks to take over, prisoners to release, etc.
"And who knows, once we learn to talk about the realities of class power, we are on our way to talking critically about capitalism, another verboten word in the public realm. And once we start a critical discourse about capitalism, we will be vastly better prepared to act against it and defend our own democratic and communal interests."
only regulated capitalism works
which would best be described as the goverment making sure that the capitalists act in a way that is socially responsible
keynesian capitalism requires a true understanding of economics, that at "proper", not equal, distribution of wealth for the society to function at its maximum level
when the distribution of wealth gets out of hand like it is now, and when profits are generated from activities harmful to the country and world, then government must step in
regulated or keynesian capitalism is a mixture of capitalism AND socialism
hard work that helps society should be rewarded
but there is enough to help take care of everyone
laziness, etc should not be rewarded but then we should not be willing to let people starve to death
they can most of them be motivated by getting rewarded for making valuable contributions to society
Point well made. If we have no language (to address matters of class, inequality, exploitation), then we can't think of these issues properly. No thought means no action. No action means we can kiss our asses good-bye. U.S. elites will not stop their epic looting and mass murders until they are forced to. As an example, the wealthiest 1000 Americans (Fortune 500 CEOs, hedge fund managers, Wall Street Bankers) should be rounded up and sequestered in the Superdome. Every day, one should be selected at random and shot between the eyes, until the remainder agree to relinquish control on this country. I would think after a month or two, they would cave. And for the sake of completeness, every elected official, and all the operators and enablers of the two mainstream political parties, would be banned from this country and forced to live in Afghanistan.
**-----** Class should also be seen as a social relationship relating to wealth and social power, involving a conflict of material interests between those who own and those who work for those who own. Without benefit of reason or research, this latter usage of class is often dismissed out of hand as “Marxist.” The narrow reductionist mainstream view of class keeps us from seeing the extent of economic inequality and the severity of class exploitation in society, allowing many researchers and political commentators to mistakenly assume that U.S. society has no deep class divisions or class conflicts of interest.
We should think of class not primarily as a demographic trait but as a relationship to the means of production, as a relationship to power and wealth. Class as in slaveholder and slave, lord and serf, capitalist and worker. Class as in class conflict and class warfare.
And who knows, once we learn to talk about the realities of class power, we are on our way to talking critically about capitalism, another verboten word in the public realm. And once we start a critical discourse about capitalism, we will be vastly better prepared to act against it and defend our own democratic and communal interests. **-----**
This is the most insightful and helpful information in this article. The fact that we are living in this society by definition makes it difficult for the mass of people to define/identify it. It is just the way things are. Parenti with these few sentences illuminates the scene, much the way Engles-Marx did in their time.
Of course, they saw a historical working out of the class system which is why their analysis was/is so feared and contested.
That light has glowed and dimmed during The Capitalist Era, but the struggle continues within and because of the US national ethos that there is no class system. Mr Parenti urges us to take up the discussion/struggle again! We, the people, certainly have an interest to protect and the movement to do so is growing.
One*Demand My*1040 + Control the funding & YOU + The*People Control Development & Corporations MUST LOBBY YOU + The*People One*Demand My*1040 Individual Directed Capitalization + iDC 65% of Your tax contribution directed & spent in the areas of public funding of YOUR CHOICE + Power+2+The*Peaceful + My*1040 + United+WE+Succeed - DIVIDED-WE-FAIL
Brilliantly argued, Mr Parenti, and a magnificent start on the long road to the re-politicization of the American proletariat.
But it behoves you and everyone who is of like mind not to stop at propaganda but to prepare for a protracted, uncompromising and bloody struggle against the Kochs and Zuckerbergs and their ilk — for one can be certain that *they* will never willingly relinquish the power that their ownership and control of society’s resources gives them.
I have always been an anti-Marxist but I would share with you a quotation that comes to me from a student who has read quite a bit.
"The credit system, which has its focal point in the allegedly national banks and the big money-lenders and usurers that surround them, is one enormous centralization and gives this class of parasites a fabulous power not only to decimate the industrial capitalists periodically but also to interfere in the most dangerous manner- and this crew knows nothing of production and have nothing at all to do with it." Karl Marx, Das Capital, vol. 3 chap. 33.
I am very sure that Marx had much wrong in his writing. Is this wrong? Does it explain what has gone on and is going on again?